Category: tips and tricks

Suddenly silent…

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Hello to the possibly dozens of viewers of Canon Blogger. I must first apologize for the suddenly silent turn the blog took these past four or five days – after Saturday’s shoot, I had a few days of rather nasty flue-like symptoms. Hopefully no one was waiting on baited breath to hear the next words I utter online or in video podcasts. Anyway, I think I am in the clear now though, so have ventured out of my cave and back to the microphone. Yup, my Tuesday tutorial got pushed back to Wednesdays. I know…it’s not like I’ve been too consistent in publications thus far, but that is something I would like to change. Ideally, I would have a scheduled theme to each of my weekly posts. One that has been buzzing my head as been along these lines:

Monday – Minutiae – trivia relating to photography

Tuesday – Tutorial – video podcast released showing the latest tip/trick in Photoshop

Wednesday

Thursday – Thoughts – My chance to wax philosophic on whatever photography discussions have been on the hot plate for the past week. I bet y’all are standing in line to hear that one, eh? 🙂

Friday – Follies – Fun silly stuff to wrap up the week…perhaps a joke or two, maybe a reference to a particularly funny comic (What the Duck comes to mind, as does Dilbert).

Anyway…just a new format/schedule I am toying with. If anyone has ideas, suggestions, or thoughts on tweaking that based on what you would like to hear/read/listen to, feel free to email me. My address (as always) is jason <AT> canonblogger <DOT> com.

But, enough of all this logistical stuff, what you want is tutorials, right? Alrighty then – here’s this weeks installment:

Rounded Corners (a.k.a. Web 2.0 graphics)

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Rounded corners on graphics are really the mainstay of the “Web 2.0” movement, so I figured it might be helpful to show a nice and easy way to apply a rounded corners effect to your images. It’s a little bit longer of a tutorial today, going upwards toward 5 minutes, as there’s some other news that I’ve shared in there as well. Rather than spoil the surprise, it’ll suffice to say here in this context to be on the lookout for a new link soon with just tons of content, with videos, PDF support documentation, and relevant attachments like actions and lots of other fun stuff.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the Rounded Corners video, first in Flash, then in Quicktime format! 🙂

Notes in Pictures

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Good morning all – fast breaking news as I have an extra tutorial this week. I was working on my portion of a collaborative project last night and saw a note pasted into the picture for me as a reminder of some rather important settings for the layer masks. It reminded me of the usefulness of making notes and saving those with the pictures! You can make text notes or audio notes with this feature, so check it out at your leisure. I’ll link to the dedicated page for now, and upload a flash version when I get home later today. In the meantime, enjoy!

Notes in Pictures

Whitening Teeth

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While it’s not the most glamorous thing in the world, when we do portrait work, a lot of the post process focuses on minimizing flaws and maximizing peoples assets. Part of this process can include giving a little more polished look to people’s teeth. Today, I walk you through the process of how to do this in Photoshop. It’s pretty straightforward, but a very useful skill to have regardless. Anyway, give it a try after watching the tutorial, and in the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts on the podcasts thus far either via email or the comments section. I’ve also published an article in m previous post that explains various settings for apertures and shutters to achieve the best composition in your photography, so check that out too.

Fair warning on the tutorial this go around – I think I have the format issue figured out for those on Macs and to increase the portability factor, but these files are pretty big (.mov format), so it may take a while for you to get these downloaded. I will still have the flash as an option for web viewing, so feel free to view online and download for playback later at your convenience. Since iTunes picks up the first uploaded attachment, the Quicktime version will appear first. The flash-based version is right below that though, so pick your poison. Let me know if either of these doesn’t work for you. Thanks and looking forward to the feedback on this one! Have a good night and happy shooting!

Link to Quicktime format for downloading: Whitening Teeth

Creating re-sizing actions in Photoshop

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For those who like to create actions for their own work flows in Photoshop, I’ve created a set of re-sizing actions that I use pretty regularly to resize image from their camera raw settings to either 800px or 600px on the longest side. It took a bit of manual, but simple math, and then some tedious manual size adjustments, but the results are far better than anything you would get from a one-stop adjustment tool (unless of course it’s another action). If you’d like to see the completed action, just drop me a line and I will be happy to share the action on an as-requested basis. Thanks again for tuning in, and enjoy the podcast!

Watching paint dry…creating worlds

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Today as I entered the final stages of my home projects (2nd coats of paint), I proceeded to enjoy some Sunday football as the paint dried. Not being one to sit around much lately, I kept the TV on in the background and looked around for something else to do on the project list. Since I was waiting on the last coat of paint to dry, I was left to either watch football, watch paint dry, or create a new tutorial. Creativity won out, so here’s the latest installment for the video tutorial series…creating globes via special effects in the program we all know and love – Photoshop! Enjoy, and I’ll post back later this week with the series of home improvement projects I’ve been working on so much lately.

Special Effects Globes

Weekly Video tip is finished

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The regular video tutorial for this week has finished production and is ready for viewing here at Canon Blogger. This week’s subject: Using path selections to define your workspace. This is a great technique for adding text in a non-linear path (horizontal or vertical). You can use any of the pre-set marquee shapes and sizes, or make a custom one for your needs. Today, I used this technique to create an alternate logo for Canon Blogger. Other outputs could include posters, stationery, web graphics, designs, templates or pretty much anything that needs some graphical influence.

Shots of the completed housework should be forthcoming within another day or two as well. It’s been a week-long process, but I am almost done (just as well after all the electrical, plumbing, painting, and drywall work)… more news on that later. For now, just enjoy the vid, and as always feel free to leave feedback here or via email: jason <at> canonblogger <dot> com :

Path Selection Tool

News lag

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It’s been a quiet few days as some home tasks have been taking up a lot of my time.  Over the course of the weekend, I began an electrical project (replacing outlets with GFCI), a plumbing project (replacing faucets in bat), and construction (drywall patching, and accessoy replacements in bath and shelving downstairs).  All that on top of the usual family routine of dinner and dog walks has put a bit of a crimp on my posts.  Having said that, the day off on Monday allowed me to put a video podcast in the can for release on Friday, so that should be forthcoming in 48 hours.

In Photo news, I was reading Scott Kelby’s blog the other day when he mentioned the website Pixel Perfect where Bert Monroy demonstrates various techniques using Photoshop.  The production quality is professional and just goes to show how far I have to go to gain that kind of quality in delivery and recording.  Such is the difference of an amateur tutorial versus an established and professional photo professional and Adobe evangelist.  Perhaps some day…

Anyway, Bert Monroy did a fantastic tutorial on how to create a smoking gun entirely inside of Photoshop.  Great technique and it’s a highly recommended 5 minutes toward learning PS techniqes.  Check it out here.

A special “Thanks”…

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Today we honor all veterans of the Armed Forces of the U.S.A. I would like to take a moment to thank each and every one of those that have and those who continue to serve to protect our country. Our freedom and way of life was paved by your predecessors and continues to find new outlets in the world thanks to the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform. To all those who serve – we salute you!

One of the side effects of honoring our veterans is that I got an extra day off work today. So…lucky viewers and listeners, I was able to get another podcast out, which means there will likely be two this week (I may even get an extra “in the can” for next week”!) So…first up is a technique for creating reflections of objects or selections inside of Photoshop. Great for making web graphics, outputting to holiday greeting cards, and for presentations in many venues. Check it out at the link or the embedded version to the blog:

Visit here: Reflections in Photoshop

or watch below:

Selections tutorial is finished

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Just under the wire…the selections tutorial production has been completed and has been posted for viewing. At a total of just over 8 minutes, it shows three different selection techniques, that when used in concert with one another, can select exact selections with professionally feathered borders for transitions into other graphics. This is particularly useful if you are porting images taken into web designed graphic backgrounds for things like headers and banners.

ETA: The closing audio was positioned incorrectly, so a correction had to be made in post production. I ran that overnight and am uploading the replacement now…it should be functional within about an hour. (6:30 or thereabouts)…apologies for the technical mishap.

Flash Version is here

Windows Version is here

Or, stay on the blog and view the WMV file natively! Any way you like it…enjoy!

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download